Neuroscientists, animal activists meet at center

Dr. Lawrence Hansen (right) neuroscience professor at UCSD, joins
the protest against the use of animals in medical research. Hansen recently
wrote an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education condemning animal
experimentation.

Julia MacKenzie of Stop Animal Exploitation Now, stands in front
of the San Diego Convention Center with a few friends. The global Society for
Neuroscience is holding its convention here through Wednesday.

Animal-rights protesters in front of the San Diego Convention
Center on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010, targeted the gathering of the Society of
Neuroscience, which is meeting here through Thursday.

SAN DIEGO — Armed with some graphic pictures and a Lincoln-quoting
neurological researcher, a small band of protesters stood in front of the
Convention Center on Saturday trying to turn the tide in animal research while
many of the 32,000 registered attendees at the Society for Neuroscience
Convention streamed in to hear the actress Glenn Close talk about research and
depression.

Scientist are gathered from all over the world to present their latest
findings in research on the brain and nervous system. According to Society
spokesman Todd Bentsen, there are summaries of 16,000 research papers up for
review through Wednesday.

About 30 people who object to the use of animals, specifically monkeys and
other primates, stood out in front as conventioneers swarmed in. Some wore lab
coats artificially bloodied red. Some wore masks. Most carried signs citing the
most egregious treatment of animals.

San Diego Police Sergeant Pete brown said there were about 15 officers on
site, most working traffic and inside the convention center. Their role, he
said, was to make sure the protesters got their message to and that the
conventioneers got unobstructed passage into the center.

The organizer of the protest Julia MacKenzie West Coast liaison for the group
Stop Animal Exploitation Now (SAEN) said their objective was to “open a
dialogue” with researchers on the use of primates in lab experimentation.

Indeed, some of the conventioneers came up and were discussing the issues
with MacKenzie.

One, who declined to give her name, said that the researchers need to have a
serious discussion on the use of animals.

Inside, neurological researcher John Morrison of Mount Sinai School of
Medicine in New York noted that a discussion on just that topic is scheduled for
Monday morning at the convention.

The 9 a.m. panel “Conferring Legal Rights to Animals: Research in the
Crosshairs” will look at the growing movement to give animals the same legal
protections as humans.

MacKenzie called much of the animal-based research “fairly arbitrary work
that has been going on for way too many years in way too many laboratories. If
there are productive results from (primate) research, I’d like to see it.”

MaKenzie also hastened to point out that their protests was not aimed at the
day’s headline speaker, the actress Glenn Close. “She’s here to speak on
something else entirely and I’m not even sure what her stand is on this,” said
MacKenzie.

Right now, said Morrison, there are numerous federal , academic and ethical
regulations that must be followed in using animals for research. Every research
clinic has its own panel which must pass review of animal research projects and
evaluate the treatment, goals and value of the research where animals are
involved.

He said the animals are used in seeking answers to the causes of Alzheimer’s
disease and brain disorders. “We still have a long way to go,” he said.

UCSD neuroscientist Lawrence A. Hansen strongly disagrees. Standing out in
front of the Convention Center with a blown up image of a monkey with a probe
injected into its skull, Hansen said that there are other ways to achieve the
same data without inflicting pain on animals.

Hansen, who does research into Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, works on
the corpses of people who have died from the afflictions. He said that digital
imaging has gotten so powerful that “it will soon provide all the answers
without drilling holes into the heads of animals.”

“I’m willing to wait a few years until techniques are perfected,” he added.

Hansen took pains to separate his colleagues’ goals from their methods. He
even pulled out a sheet of paper with the words of Lincoln handwritten upon it:
“The true rule in determining to embrace or reject anything is not whether it
have any evil in it, but whether it have more of evil than of good. There are
few things wholly evil or wholly good.”

Hansen and his fellow protesters think that ending animal-based research
would be a definite step toward the good side.